Lin-Manuel Miranda on Life After Hamilton: ‘My Wife Misses the Ponytail’

While Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s wife is happy to have him at home more now that he’s finished his award-winning run in Hamilton, there’s one thing she’s missing: his long hair.

“My wife misses my ponytail. She was like, ‘Oh, I have a new husband for a couple of years,'” Miranda tells PEOPLE. “Less people recognize me with the short hair, hence I love the short hair. I like the 30 minutes a day I save on looking for hair ties.”

Miranda’s work life isn’t any less busy, however. Although he now has his nights back and enjoys being home to put his 2-year-old son Sebastian to bed, since leaving Hamilton Miranda co-wrote the music for Disney’s new animated film Moana and is starring alongside Emily Blunt in the live action musical Mary Poppins Returns.

For much more on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Moana, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now

“Now, my days consist of singing and dancing with Emily Blunt all day and then I tuck my kid in at the end of the night and that’s pretty rad,” he says, adding that with his Mary Poppins role he is flexing a whole new set of muscles.

“I haven’t danced this hard since In the Heights,” Miranda admits. “Hamilton was a grueling show but not particularly for the role of Hamilton — I sort of had to park and rap at high speeds. In the Heights I danced a lot, and I’m sort of getting back to that.”

Of his meteoric rise to fame, Miranda admits that he still has trouble wrapping his mind around it and compares the experience to that of a classic cartoon character.

“It’s the cartoon where Wile E. Coyote straps himself to a rocket to chase the Road Runner,” he says. “That’s been my life lately, and yet, there’s plenty around to keep me humble and make a gajillion mistakes every day. I have a son who does not care what time I go to bed — he’s waking up at 6. Life goes on, and we have a pretty normal life all things considered.”

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